Mail to milk, the post office has `em all  ( December '6,2003, HBL)

THE Postal Department in Tamil Nadu is going to deliver a lot more than just mail.

On offer will be monthly milk cards, prepaid cards for mobiles, magazines, job applications and a lot more. (Some of these are already on sale and the department is open to a more ideas, even routing small loans from banks.)

The department in Tamil Nadu is getting into retailing and services. It has finalised marketing arrangements with companies such as Hatsun Agro Product Ltd, a private dairy, AirTel and publications such as Ananda Vikatan, Dinamalar and Dinamani, which are looking at marketing some of their supplements through post offices.

The post offices will also sell application forms of the Central and State public service commissions, according to officials.

These businesses are even more lucrative than the conventional postal work: There is virtually no labour involved for the staff and no expenditure to the department.

Take for instance, the time involved in delivering a Rs 100-money order to New Delhi. "We book the money order, give a receipt to the customer, make the despatch to New Delhi, where the details are entered into a register, then a postman makes an entry into the postman-book, makes the delivery, renders the accounts to a clerk who prepares a MO-paid list and submits it to the postal accounts office." All this costs a lot more than the Rs 5 the department earns on the money order.

Now consider this: A staffer sells a Diwali supplement worth Rs 100, retains 20 per cent as commission, writes out a cheque to Ananda Vikatan for the balance. That is Rs 20 for very little work. It is the publishers' responsibility to deliver the magazines to the post offices and collect the unsold copies. On the sale of the monthly milk cards, the department will earn Rs 10 on each card; Rs 7 on each application form. "Net revenue without expenditure," the officials say.

About 1,500 post offices in Tamil Nadu — 42 in Chennai alone — are handling such `retail post services.'

According to officials of the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (Nabard), they are looking at roping in post offices for some of their micro-credit delivery. Small loans from banks can be routed through the post offices to women self-help groups in rural areas, they said.

This does not mean that the traditional function of delivering letters is being ignored. There too, the department is adding value. For instance, in the last three months some post offices have started offering customers material for wrapping parcels. These are sold with a minimal margin to compete with private courier services.

There was a rush for these materials during the festival season in November and the idea has taken off in a big way in industrial towns such as Karur, where businesses have to send out samples to their customers. The department is also planning to expand some of these services to other States.

Also, the officials say, people coming in to buy magazines are picking up an inland letter or a card and "rediscovering the joy of writing."